Beauty and the Badge

by Julie Miller

  “Which were?”

  She tilted her face back up to his. “‘Make it right.’ I think he’s the one who put that flash drive in my purse. I think it’s the missing research data. He was trying to tell me something—something he couldn’t come right out and say. I got the files to open, but I couldn’t make much sense of them. Yet.”

  Kevin nodded, releasing her to smooth the dark brown bangs away from her eyes. “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “I’m on the case.”

  Her hands fisted in his jacket, catching a bit of shirt and skin underneath. “You believe me?”

  He didn’t mind the little pinch one bit. That little tug on his skin made him feel alive. Connected. Call him twenty kinds of fool, but he was in this mess for as long as Beth needed him. “You are either the best actress I’ve ever met—and trust me, I’ve already met the best—or you, lady, have stumbled onto something you shouldn’t have.”

  “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

  “Nah.” Kevin brushed the velvety wisps of her hair off her cheek before tunneling his fingers into the soft thickness at her nape. He dipped his mouth and grazed his lips over the purple mark bruising her cheek. He pressed another kiss to her forehead.

  He paused at her mouth, giving her the chance to push him away.

  She didn’t.

  Kevin claimed what she offered.

  “I believe you.”

  “TO OUR FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE, Charles Landon. We’ll miss you.”

  Beth raised her glass in a toast along with Raymond Glenn and the board members and staff gathered around the table in the GlennCo headquarters conference room. But she set the potent alcohol down without taking a drink that might cloud her mind or give any credence to this travesty of an impromptu memorial service. By the time Mr. Glenn had locked up his bottle of bourbon in the liquor cabinet at the end of the room and tossed his keys into the drawer on top, Beth had taken her place by the windows and opened her laptop to take notes the way she had for Dr. Landon at similar meetings.

  After a quick introduction of the twelve board members seated around the table, Mr. Glenn welcomed the blond woman seated in Dr. Landon’s chair. “Deborah, you are allowed to vote in Charles’s place, according to company bylaws.”

  Even though the agenda had been significantly curtailed, Raymond Glenn had insisted on convening the GlennCo board of directors meeting that afternoon. Beth sat in her corner chair behind the spot where Charles had once sat, typing notes onto her laptop. Other than Deborah’s presence, and the puffy red eyes of several board members around the room, it was being run like any other meeting.

  Raymond commanded the room from his spot at the head of the long conference table. “We owe it to our investors to have a clear plan of action for the new year. With this tight economy, they’re looking for financial security. The board’s indecision won’t give them that.”

  “Shouldn’t we table these discussions at least for a few days?” Deborah asked, her voice croaky with grief. “I haven’t even made funeral arrangements.”

  “I apologize for being the tough guy here. But some hard decisions have to be made for next year. The motion is on the table to move forward with our production of Gehirn 330. Geneva, is the promotional campaign in place and ready to launch?”

  Even the Iron Butterfly of the boardroom had been rattled by her former husband’s death, it seemed. She took a moment to compose herself before answering. “I want to run it by a trial audience first, but—”

  Beth interrupted. This was wrong. This was all just wrong. “Dr. Landon was against the production of Gehirn 330.”

  All eyes in the room snapped to her corner by the windows. Geneva Landon groused. “You don’t have the floor—”

  “Did he tell you that?” asked Silas Ramsey, the elderly board member sitting beside her.

  Beth figuratively stood her ground. “I know he wanted to look at Dr. Allen’s data again.”

  Glenn shoved a thick printout into the center of the conference table. “I have all of Dr. Allen’s research right here in Charles’s report. According to the lab, the clinical trials were a success. All the necessary modifications for product safety have been made. Side effects are minimal. The drug works.”

  Geneva passed the binder to Silas, who passed it on to Deborah, who heaved it over her shoulder with an impatient sigh into Beth’s hands. A quick thumb through the pages revealed information just as confusing and complicated as the scientific data on the flash drive still burning a hole of guilt in the pocket of her slacks. How was she going to make sense of any of this? How was she supposed to help Charles if she didn’t know what he’d wanted her to do with the data?

  Raymond Glenn had risen and was now circling the table. If this was a courtroom, he’d be the prosecutor giving his final summation. “Of course, I would have liked to have had Charles give us the thumbs-up in person in his presentation, but I think his stamp of approval on this report—” he paused beside Beth to pick up the binder “—gives us the go-ahead to put Gehirn 330 on the market. We can change lives because of Charles’s vision, give him a fitting tribute by reversing the onset of Alzheimer’s.”

  Deborah Landon raised her hand. “Could you name the new medicine after Charlie?”

  Raymond nodded. “Good idea.” He set the binder at the head of the table again, and pointed to Geneva. “Can your team brainstorm some product names? Or work Charles’s name prominently into the documentation?”

  Geneva smoothed her flawless hair, trying to mask the stunned expression on her face. “We already have three different promotion campaigns in place, ready for consumer testing. Nothing against dear Charles, but coming up with something new at this point would cause expensive delays.”

  “Expensive I can absorb. Delays I won’t stand for. Do what you can.” Leaving Geneva Landon’s openmouthed protest unanswered, he sat. “Anything else for the good of the order?”

  A dispirited chorus of “no”s triggered a general shuffle of movement around the table, as board members, staff and guests gathered their things in preparation for adjournment.

  “Well, I do have a couple more things.” Raymond’s sober announcement stopped all activity. “One, Charles was my business partner for many years. We started this company together. We took GlennCo public and built it into a world leader. Long before that, he was my friend.” He paused to swallow the emotion choking his throat. “Over the next couple of weeks, take whatever time you need to mourn our loss. Be with your families. Celebrate the holidays. Starting tomorrow, we’ll function with a skeleton staff for now and get back to work after the New Year—maybe just enough people to answer phones and field questions from the press for now. And finally—” his dark gaze settled on Deborah, then glanced around the table before stopping at Beth “—I want to make GlennCo security available to any of you who are…upset…by Charles’s death.” He looked to the security chief standing with his arms crossed near the room’s double doors. “Tyler, can you arrange that?”

  “Yes, sir.” The big man nodded. “We can walk you to your cars, screen clients who enter the building, run security checks on anyone you deem suspicious.”

  “Wouldn’t counselors make more sense than beefed-up security?” Beth dared to ask. “Or don’t you think Dr. Landon’s death was a suicide?”

  “I think…I need to do a better job of taking care of the people who are important to me. I wish now that I’d done a better job of taking care of Charles. He must have been calling for help and none of us realized it.” He crossed the length of the room and lay a hand on her shoulder. “Look at you, Miss Rogers. Mugged in your own home and now this. I should be protecting you instead of just passing you by in the break room. You’re a valuable employee to the company. You are all valuable to me,” he insisted, finally moving away. “Prayers and comfort to you all. And Deborah? Let us know if there’s anything we can do.” Raymond Glenn resumed his seat at the head of the table. The company-as-family moment had
passed. It was back to business. “So, are we making millions with Gehirn 330? How does everyone vote?”

  “I DON’T NEED YOU TO DRIVE me home, Mr. James,” Beth said to the beefy man who’d bumped into her at the lobby security desk. After checking out, she set her purse on the counter for the guard to inspect while she zipped up her parka and wrapped her scarf around her neck. “I’m perfectly fine. Besides, I’d be stuck at home in the morning without a way to get to work.”

  “I could pick you up, as well,” he offered.

  Um, no. His sudden buddy-buddy behavior, coupled with a striking resemblance to the large build of the man who’d attacked her and followed her into the Plaza parking garage, made the offer more unsettling than comforting.

  Beth grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder, anxious to get back to the relative safety and familiarity of her own home before either Tyler or the guard decided to search her person. If the guilt she felt at carrying the potentially incriminating flash drive in her pocket didn’t show on her face, it was certainly branding her deeper inside.

  “Don’t be silly.” She smiled, waving aside his offer. “I’m heading straight home. My Jeep’s in perfect working order and besides, I enjoy the commute. I think I can use the quiet time alone today, especially.”

  “Understandable,” he conceded. He reached across the counter and typed his logout code into the computer. “At least let me walk you to your car. I’m heading to the garage anyway.”

  “That isn’t nec—”

  “Come on.” He picked up his long coat from the counter and shrugged it on, giving her a clear glimpse of the gun beneath his left arm and the security badge he wore. “The boss is riding my case about the welfare of his employees. I think he’s especially worried that, with the cops showing up, and you finding the body—”

  “Actually, Geneva did.”

  “—that you might be too upset to drive on your own.”

  “I’m a grown-up, Mr. James. I appreciate your concern, but I’ve dealt with death before.”

  “Let me do my job, ma’am.” He touched her elbow and turned her toward the parking garage exit. “I’ll walk you to your car, follow you home—then I can call Mr. Glenn and assure him everything’s hunky dory and be on my way.” Beth shifted away from his light grip, but he slowed his stride to keep pace beside her. “You can’t tell me you’re not rattled by Dr. Landon’s death.”

  She couldn’t. Maybe Kevin Grove wasn’t the only big man whose intentions she’d misjudged. Big didn’t make Tyler James her attacker any more than it did Kevin, though his solicitous attention this evening made her decidedly uncomfortable. And would raising too much of a stink about GlennCo’s newfound concern for her well-being make Tyler suspicious of her? There were other coworkers filing out to their cars in the garage. As long as she wasn’t alone with him, that was caution enough, yes? “Okay. Walk me to my car. I’ll take it from there.”

  Beth was driving down Highway 24, coming up on the turn into her neighborhood, before she realized his friendly good-night and wave didn’t mean Tyler James had agreed to her compromise. She hadn’t spotted him in the bumper-to-bumper traffic getting out of downtown. She must have left him in the dust on Interstate 70. But there was no mistaking the hulking shadow behind the wheel of the dark car that made the turn right after her.

  There was no mistaking the frissons of fear and suspicion twisting in her stomach, either. Maybe she’d been too quick to judge Tyler James—as innocent. Why was the man following her?

  She released the steering wheel to touch her hip, where the flash drive was still hidden beneath layers of clothing. Did he suspect she had this? Did Mr. Glenn? Who besides Charles Landon knew it existed? And just what did it contain that warranted assault and subterfuge and murder? Because she was having fewer and fewer doubts that Dr. Landon’s odd behavior and the events that followed were all connected in some sinister fashion.

  With a sinking heart, Beth noticed the porch light was on at Kevin’s house—a definite sign that no one was home. But Hank Whitaker was outside, chipping away at the ice that had formed at the end of his driveway. Beth made a point of honking and waving until the older gentleman looked up from his work and saluted her.

  Witnesses meant safety, right? She ignored the habit of pressing her garage-door opener as she approached her house and parked in the driveway. Tyler’s dark green car pulled up to the curb behind her. She was out of the Jeep, storming toward him as soon as he climbed out of his car.

  “Why are you following me when I specifically asked you not to? You didn’t trail any other employees to their homes. What makes me so special?”

  “Ease up, sweetheart. You’re the only one who was attacked.” Tyler halted at the edge of her driveway, his leather gloved hands raised in placating surrender. “We think it may have been Dr. Landon who went after you.”

  “Charles?” No way.

  “Surely you noticed he hadn’t been himself lately. If he was up to something that didn’t pan out, he was obsessed with you, or he just had a screw loose—any of those are reason enough for a man to feel shame and kill himself.” His expression softened with pity. “Do you know how many of his wives used to be his assistant?”

  Let me guess. “Four?”

  “He may have been targeting you as number five.”

  Beth pressed a hand to her temple and shook her head. “No. Dr. Landon was a mentor. A father figure.” A man in some kind of trouble. He’d reached out to her for help and she hadn’t even known it. Now he was dead. And she couldn’t believe it had been his choice. “He never would have hurt me.”

  “Yeah, well, that kind of misplaced loyalty is why Mr. Glenn is worried about your state of mind tonight.”

  “My state of mind? So siccing you on me is supposed to be some kind of comfort?”

  He dropped his hands. His patient expression hardened. “Ma’am, you’re blowing this all out of proportion. I’m just here to make sure there’s no more fallout after what happened today. Mr. Glenn is worried about bad publicity for the company.”

  So his concern wasn’t about her at all. “Maybe he should be. Insisting on that meeting this afternoon when all of us are grieving? Just so he could get his precious new drug into production?”

  “He’s thinking about our future when some of us aren’t thinking very clearly at all.”

  He didn’t have to point a finger to know he was referring to her. “Get off my property.”

  “Look, Elisabeth—most of us have family. Deborah Landon has a live-in maid. But we know you live alone. You heard Mr. Glenn today. He wants to take better care of—”

  A thunderous bark from the sidewalk gave Beth a heads-up only a moment before a brindle-colored torpedo launched itself at them. “Daisy?”

  “What the hell? Look out!” Tyler jumped aside as Beth took the full force of massive paws in the middle of her stomach, sprawling her on her fanny in the snow.

  The icy shock of wet and cold seeping through her clothes gave way to a moment of panic as the dog’s square jaw with drool frozen in its wrinkles cocked her head to one side and barked at her again. Beth put her hands over her ears and tried to slither her way backward through the snow, but a deep-pitched voice commanded Daisy to sit—on Beth’s legs—anchoring her to the spot.

  “Good girl.” When Kevin Grove jogged up in a gray KCPD sweatshirt and black knit watch cap, he snatched up the leash trailing behind the panting mastiff mix and reached out a gloved hand to help Beth to her feet. “She just wants to get to know you.” Reassurance aside, while Beth brushed the snow off her slacks, Kevin faced off against Tyler James. “Beth’s not alone.”

  “Grove.” He pulled his hand from the holster beneath his arm and buttoned his coat. “Isn’t this a surprise.”

  “You weren’t going to shoot my dog, were you?”

  “It’s my job to protect GlennCo employees. I thought he was attacking her.”

  “She was just greeting Beth with an enthusiastic hello.”
Kevin spared a glance over his shoulder to Beth without ever really taking his focus off the GlennCo security chief. “Is there a problem?”

  “No problem.”

  “Yes,” she answered at the same time. “He followed me home and he won’t leave.”

  “Now who am I inclined to believe?”

  Tyler looked from Kevin’s steely glare down to Beth. “I’m just carrying out my orders to look after you. See you home. Check out the house. Are you sure you want this guy and that…thing here?”

  Daisy woofed as the glove pointed her way. Tyler quickly snatched his hand back.

  Beth linked her arm through Kevin’s and bravely laid her hand on Daisy’s broad head. The big dog saw the touch as a friendly invitation and pushed herself into Beth’s surprisingly willing caress. “Yes, I do. Thank Mr. Glenn for his concern—and for yours. But I’ll be just fine. I’ll see you in the morning at work.”

  Leaving a scowling Tyler behind in her driveway, Beth escorted Kevin up to her front door and unlocked the house. He hesitated a moment on the porch, pulling back on Daisy’s leash. But Beth clicked her tongue behind her teeth. “C’mon, girl.” Daisy bounded in after her, leaving Kevin little choice but to follow them both inside. He closed the door and bolted it behind him.

  Beth had grown up with dogs, though admittedly none the size of a small pony, and found herself breathing a sigh of relief at the normalcy of Daisy sniffing her way from chair to sofa to dining room table, familiarizing herself with the smells of the house.

  “When she thaws out, she’ll leave a mess on your carpet,” Kevin apologized.

  Wet dog she could deal with. “I don’t mind. Her timing was impeccable. Now that I’m learning she’s all bark and no bite, I think I’m going to like Daisy.”

  “So. What’s for dinner?”

  “Excuse me?” She turned to see Kevin at her front window, peeking through the blinds. Did he always run the dog with a gun strapped to his back? Had he been expecting some kind of trouble?